Wednesday, March 13, 2012

Back at the Miraflores we arose and had breakfast on the 11^th floor roof top restaurant.  Down in the lobby at 9 we met Nicholas and Brisa.  Nicholas introduced himself as the head of Butterfield and Robinson’s Peruvian contractor.  We learned later that B&R and Nicholas’s company will start a 9 day trip in April that will cover some of the activities in the Lima region upon which we are about to embark.  Nicholas is young, handsome and personable.  The perfect person to pair with B&R.  Brisa Deneumostier is a charming, mid thirties chef who was to be our guide and instructor for the day.

Our first stop was Casa Blanca, a farm in Valle Verde, a fertile valley south of Lima that has become a center of sustainable farming.  The coastal region of Peru is a dessert but it has several rivers crossing it to the sea and has also under ground aquifers.   Casa Blanco is a one-hector farm created and operated by Ulises Moreno and Carmen Felipe-Morales.  He has a PhD in agronomy from Cornell and she has a PhD in Ecology.  Here is a picture of Elises:  As newlyweds they purchased a one hector plot of sandy desert and created a magnificent sustainable farm.  In Peru, guinea pigs are a common food source and the farm centers around guinea pig production. The guinea pigs have a nine-week gestation period and produce several litters a year.  They also are prolific producers of guano.  I think Ulises said that one hundred guinea pigs produce 3 tons of guano a month (Ben thinks he said per week) At any rate the guano is mixed with organic debris in compose piles to produce fertilizer.  Some of it is placed in a digesting tank, using a Chinese technique, mixed with water in an anaerobic process that produces methane and a liquid that is rich in nutrients and that is added to the compose heaps.  The methane case is collected and stored for use as a cooking fuel as well as a fuel for a generator.  The crop selection on the farm uses symbiotic relationships and includes manioc, strawberries, a berry like black berries and flowers such as the bird of paradise.  The water for the crops comes from wells only three meters or so deep and the water for personal use comes from a well 15 meters deep.  They also recycle household water by flushing it into a plot with a special planting on a bed of rocks that acts as a filter on the water.  It is all very impressive.  Revenue for the farm comes from the sale of guinea pigs and from the crops.  Ulises is 81 and quite energetic.  He is an ardent spokesman for his sustainable techniques and travels around the country promoting it.  There are some farms around Cusco that are employing his techniques but it has not caught on  - yet – the way he would hope.

After Casa Blanca we went to a nearby ceramics factory owned and operated by Brisa’s parents.  Brisa is the youngest child in her family.  She has a half sister that is 9 years older and the child of her mother’s first marriage.  She also has three half siblings who are products of her fathers first and second marriages.  Her father’s family had a plastic molding business making toys.  While pregnant with Brisa, her mother made some pottery as gifts to customers of the plastics business.  They were so well received that the customers began asking for more.  Just as her pottery making was expanding, the plastics business failed.  Utilizing some of the machinery from that business Brisa’s mother began expanding.  She met Richard Adler, (a successful pottery designer with which Gail is familiar and some of whose pottery she has in her flower studio) and they formed a partnership.  Now 80 per cent of her production is for Adler, the balance is for other designers and she still designs some for herself as well.  The factory is located inside a high- walled compound (a common arrangement we observed) and appears to have somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 square feet employing about 70 people.  Also in the compound is a lovely three-story house with a huge kitchen (for Brisa’s work) The house is not used as a residence but does have a comfortable guestroom for visiting clients.   

The real purpose of our visit was to have a cooking lesson from Brisa.  About 35 years of age, Brisa studied at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, worked in Noma in Copenhagen, worked in Spain and a slew of other places.   It was an active lesson with each of us given tasks.  I was assigned the simple repetitive tasks such as squeezing the lemons and grating their skins.  Ben, Gail and Caroline were entrusted with more dangerous missions such as chopping, dicing and plucking sprigs of greenery.  We began with a pisco sour.  It is usually made with three measures of pisco, Peruvian liquor, two measures fruit juice (in our case passion fruit juice but often lemon juice) and one measure of sugar syrup.  We altered the mix and made it a little sweeter with 1.5 measures of passion fruit and 1.5 measures of sugar syrup.  Next egg white is added.  On the Aqua, the bar tender Robinson used a shaker to shake up this mix.  Brisa used a blender.  When it was poured into a glass, the egg white rises to the top.

Next we made a ceviche of sea base with lemon juice and some of the ingredients prepared by Ben, Gail and Caroline.  We will be sent the menu and I will not try to repeat it here because the risk of error is more than slight. There was a vegetable salad and next sea bass was baked with a julienne of vegetables.  The dessert was a concoction that included pomegranate seeds, yogurt, a Peruvian fruit some apple slices and chocolate.  If you are interested you can get the menu from Caroline when it is emailed her.

We finished lunch at three very full and totally aware that we had dinner reservations at Astrid and Gastonne’s in Lima, a highly rated restaurant.  After lunch we headed to the nearby archeology site, Pachmacamac.  Danielle, an archeology PhD candidate, joined us.  Here was a gigantic city of temples dating from the pre Inca times.  The temples were solid pyramids and appeared to be pilgrimage sites.  It also appears that human sacrifice was practiced.  Our visit was truncated because the security guards closed access to the temples at 4:30 even though quitting time was 5.

We returned to the hotel, showered and changed and met Lucian our driver at 7:15.  We were not supposed to have a driver for the restaurant because in the city taxis are fine.  However, in a gesture to compensate for the delay in meeting us at the airport Lucien met us and took us to Astrid’s and Gastonne’s.  It is a lovely building with dark wood and high ceilings.  It had several specious dining rooms, a kitchen open to view and appeared to be constructed on a concrete frame.  While the food was wonderful, the wine list was mediocre.  My guess is that if you start with a pisco sour you no longer have the pallet for fine wine.  Ben ordered as an appetizer cuy (guinea pig) prepared like Peking duck   and Gail three samplings of ceviche.  For a main course Ben and Gail shared a rockfish with avocado and fish broth.  Caroline and I each had a bonito with a coconut mousse and a black bean quinoa garnish.  The food was excellent.  For dessert Gail and Ben ordered and shared a mango served with a chocolate and an ice cream from a local fruit the name of which I cannot recall.  The restaurant was only 12 to 15 blocks from the hotel and we elected to walk home.  The temperature was about 70 and it was a lovely night.  The streets were crowded with Peruvian enjoying the evening.  We walked back to the path along the top of the cliff overlooking the sea and then back to the hotel.  It was a very nice evening.

We made plans to leave the hotel at 7:45 in order to clear security and board Elgin Air’s inaugural flight from Lima to Iguassu Falls.  The operator of the Lear 35 is Lider Air, a Brazilian operator.  I am typing these notes on the flight and will try to upload them as soon as I have Internet service and time.